Volume 1 Issue 3

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The Target’s attention was focused on a salesclerk, and the dozen or more beauty products strewn across the counter between them. Both women were attractive and their animated conversation drew the cursory attention of other shoppers who passed by. The clerk’s confident sales pitch came across clearly, even though her words didn’t carry to the Watcher stationed in front of a nearby display of silk ties. He didn’t even have to guess at the spiel the clerk used: he could read lips quite well. The smoky look is easy with this set and at forty-five, it’s a must have. ’Course to be, like, versatile, you’ll also need the duo compact. It’s sixty-eight, but you can do, like, smoky and the baby blue day look… The Watcher observed the women while maintaining the pose of an absorbed shopper. Later, he would think about the banality of their conversation. He would wonder, as he always did, if the Target was also remembering what she had been saying and doing; how superficial and silly she had been acting as her world was irrevocably changing. But he was working now, and he did not let his eyes stray, even for a second, in the direction of the child who played with blocks of soap from a sales display twenty feet away from where the Target and the salesclerk discussed the merits of various shades of overpriced eye shadow.

After a few initial glances over her shoulder toward her child, the Target focused her attention entirely on the clerk and her wares. This came as no surprise to the Watcher: he had followed the woman and her little girl through store after store in the mall. The woman shopped, trying on clothes, shoes, and jewelry while her tiny daughter tried to keep up with her, sometimes grabbing onto one of the growing number of shopping bags, other times waddling behind. The child had initially begged for drinks or treats or to be held but her pleas had been ignored, with the exception of one sound smack to her backside, which might have escalated to an old-fashioned spanking had the Target not been upbraided by another shopper after the first whack. The Target’s lack of embarrassment at being called out by a total stranger, coupled with her rapid departure from the lingerie store into the crowds in the center of the mall, reinforced the reports the Watcher had read on the woman and her child. After putting some distance between herself and the disapproving onlooker, the Target stopped and spoke to her daughter, leaning down so her lips were just above the child’s left ear. Her words were blocked from the Watcher’s view by the brown curls that covered the little head, but he had no doubt about the message being conveyed to the toddler. Afterward, the child kept her head down and her thumb cemented between her lips as she followed along behind the Target. Later, while the woman tried on pair after pair of shoes, the child played unsupervised between the racks of sale sneakers and last season’s sandals. Soon afterward, the Target took an armload of clothes into a stall and firmly shut the door in the child’s face, leaving the little girl to amuse herself with the coat hangers piled up in a corner near the three-way mirror of a unisex dressing room. There was a bad moment when the child picked up something from the floor and popped it in her mouth. Even if the Watcher could have reached her in time from his less-than-ideal location behind a rack of sale jewelry near the dressing room entrance, he wouldn’t have stopped her; it was not his place to interfere, only to assess the Target. And to give the go-ahead once he was sure the transfer could be successfully executed. Now, three hours into what would be the Target’s last shopping excursion with her child, the Watcher moved to the nearest counter to pay for a silk tie, engaging the clerk in a discussion on the value of his selection compared to the display of Pierre Cardin ties lined up in front of the register. While the Target was in the Watcher’s line of site, she was directly behind the clerk who rang up the tie sale. Neither of them noticed the signal that passed between the Watcher and a small blond woman who less than a minute later carried a tiny girl with golden brown curls out of the store and into a waiting van. *** Roland and Amy Blaisdale clasped hands tightly and alternately laughed and cried as the limousine carried them from the open green countryside and into congested city streets. Roland said Amy had never looked more beautiful and impending motherhood must be the reason. Amy said Roland was already into goofy-Dad behavior. These corny sentiments made them both cry, and if they had known the driver was listening to them via a one-way speaker, they wouldn’t have cared a bit. As soon as he had picked them up at the airport, they had tried to engage him in conversation, peppering him with questions about his employer (he was a service for hire), whether he had done this before (no, it’s the regular guy’s day off), could he imagine anything more wonderful than what was about to happen to them (he didn’t know what was going to happen, and he couldn’t talk and drive safely, sorry ma’am). And then he pushed the button that closed the panel between them and activated the earpiece that let him spend the next hour listening to the Blaisdales babble about their unexpected good fortune. Fifteen minutes into the ride, the driver began to relax and allowed himself a small smile. Unless he was very wrong, and he seldom was, the transfer would go off as planned. By the time the limo drew up in front of the non-descript office building on 57th Street, Roland Blaisdale had filled six pages in a legal pad with lists he and Amy had constructed during their ride. There was so much to do and between tears and laughter, they had needed the grounding the legal pad and multiple lists provided. They hadn’t known today would be the day and the call that came at seven a.m., just as they were leaving for work, had shocked them both into momentary silence. A silence broken by Roland’s whoop and Amy’s squeal as he lifted her off her feet and swung her around the kitchen. They had expected to wait months, if not years, but here they were, six weeks after their last interview, in a limousine in Manhattan about to pick up their baby. Their daughter Moira. Or Amanda. Or Paige. The Blaisdales had made a lot of lists: they just hadn’t made a lot of decisions. In fact, they’d found it impossible to decide anything, so they just kept adding to the lists (Carolina? Tara? Jane?) while laughing and crying and kissing and trying to remember the name of the pink laundry detergent you needed to wash baby clothes. Roland made himself pay attention to the driver’s instructions, and then he and Amy race-walked into the building and went to the bank of elevators on the far side of the lobby. As soon as they were out of sight, the driver made a call and alerted his contact that the Blaisdales had arrived and appeared to be exactly as advertised. *** “She’s 30 months old,” Dr. Carter said. Amy Blaisdale reached out and patted her husband’s arm before the words he had opened his mouth to say could take form. Her gentle gesture spoke clearly: wait and hear what she has to say. “I know I said an infant,” Dr. Carter continued, “and we do have a newborn boy here, but we have another couple, who, for reasons I can’t go into—privacy, you know—would really be an excellent fit for him. We also have a five-month-old girl, but as you know, infants are in high demand and are much easier to place. The child I’d like for you to consider is perfect: she’s just a bit older. Still young enough to lose the memory of her birth family.” “I think we were clear, Dr. Carter. We are expecting an infant.” Roland Blaisdale wasn’t giving in. “I understand and believe me; I don’t want to talk you into anything. It’s just…” Rosalie Carter paused and took a moment to straighten the papers on her desk into perfectly aligned stacks before clearing her throat and starting again. “I really enjoyed meeting you two last month, and I felt some connection during our interviews?” She gave them a hopeful smile and the Blaisdales’ expressions softened. “Then I did the intake work on this child, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what a wonderful match you would be for little Amy. I’d like for you to just meet her before you draw any conclusions about adopting an older child.” Amy and Roland looked confused; Rosalie Carter’s smile grew wider. “That’s right. Her birth name is Amy. Amy Nicole.” “What happened to her family?” Amy Blaisdale whispered. Her throat suddenly felt tight, and a tingling started at the back of her knees. Her grandmother’s name was Amy Nicolette. “The birth mother was sixteen when Amy was born. She tried to tough it out at first, but she is a smart girl, and she realized she couldn’t care for Amy. The father was eighteen when Amy was conceived. He didn’t know the child existed when he was killed in a car wreck six months before she was born. He only had a stepbrother and a stepfather, both in the military and neither in a position to take the child. The birth records show ‘father unknown.’ The maternal grandmother has had the child for the past two years but was recently diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. She initially contacted us, but we worked with both the birth mother and grandmother. We placed a cousin’s baby, and they trust us.” Roland moved closer to Amy on the couch and took both her hands. They looked at each other, silent but communicating all the same. “You know how we work.” Dr. Carter looked at the Blaisdales for confirmation, and they both nodded. “Amy was born on the west coast, about 3,400 miles from here. Parental ties are already legally severed. We are part of a large network of private agencies. We work on a double-blind system—none of the agencies know the other’s clients or contacts. No one will be showing up on your doorstep next month, next year, or ever, to claim any kind of connection to Amy. We do have the birth mother’s medical records as well as Amy’s and both are healthy. There is no indication of any drug use or excessive alcohol use on the birth mother’s part, and Amy’s infancy was unremarkable.” She waited a beat and watched the Blaisdales. The apprehension that had clouded both of their faces was fading. She passed two small photographs to Roland who released one of Amy’s hands to take them. Husband and wife stared first at a school photo of a beautiful teenager in a cheerleader’s uniform. Her smile was electric even in the creased photo: huge blue eyes and a tousled blond up-do completed the picture of an all-American dream. But the second photo grabbed and kept their attention. A tiny girl sat on a hooked rug and played with blocks, her concentration causing her to purse her cupid-bow lips. Golden brown curls covered her head, framing a set of wide blue eyes. “You said the grandmother has lung cancer?” Roland asked. “A life-long smoker,” Dr. Carter said, as if she were assuring them this one blemish was no indication any imperfections had filtered down to the child. “However, the grandmother says she never smoked near Amy, and there is no record of any other family member with cancer.” She rose and said gently, “I’ll have to have the pictures back. They go back to the originating agency, and there are no copies allowed.” Roland handed the cheerleader’s picture back immediately, but continued to look at the other snapshot. “Would you like to see her in person?” Dr. Carter asked as she held her hand out for the picture. “I could only permit it through a one-way mirror. Unless, of course, you think you might be interested in her, and then you could visit with her for a while.” The Blaisdales were slow to rise, both looking a bit unsteady and still clinging to each other. Dr. Carter moved to the door, opened it, and turned back. “After you see her, if you still want an infant, I’ll take you to the nursery.” Roland and Amy looked at each other and, still communicating with long stares and squeezing of hands, came to a decision. They would look at Amy Nicole, and then they would take their daughter home.

Cheril Thomas lives on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Her nonfiction work has appeared in Municipal Maryland, and her fiction has been included in Wild Violet Magazine.

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